


SAVE CHLOE

by Sirenfiction



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Chloe dies but not, F/F, Fix Fic, gayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, lis spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:46:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5056213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sirenfiction/pseuds/Sirenfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max made a mistake. And then she fixed it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	SAVE CHLOE

Bang. It ripped through Max, like, excuse the irony, a bullet. She doesn’t know how she stayed quiet. Only that David comes around the corner, yells her name, shakes her and suddenly she's back, and she can smell the blood and hear Nathan sobbing, and someone is yelling in the hallway. And it hits her what’s happened, what she let happen.  
David takes her somewhere, to some room where she cries and cries and smashes her camera but she can’t rewind. She tries and tries and she can’t. Max shakes, holding the shards of the camera in her hands. Some part of her remembers the one Chloe gave her, it’s still in her room. Chloe’s room. Max’s lips still tingle. She doesn’t know how she is going to live on, without Chloe, her Chloe. Max lays her head on a desk, and closes her eyes. 

It’s a week later when Max tries again. The funeral was yesterday. The butterfly had landed on Chloe’s coffin and Max had felt closure, for a moment. But as soon as she was back in her dorm, seeing the flowers and notes from Kate and Warren and other people she hardly knew, Max slid down the wall in tears.  
Everything reminds her of Chloe, and in this reality Chloe was never even here. The only thing in the room that is hers is the camera, Max got it when she helped Joyce pick out the clothes- the clothes Chloe would be buried in. Joyce hardly said anything, she just looked at Max with the camera, gave a sad smile and nodded gently.  
Everyone was so gentle. With Max, with each other. Max just wanted to scream. Nothing felt loud enough, nothing was bright enough. Nothing was Chloe enough. Max had sat there until dawn, sleeping fitfully but mostly staring at her hands. It was only when Warren came that she rose, and then only to let him in, hug him, and let him help her into bed. Warren played her guitar for a while, strumming softly and tunelessly and talking to her, saying how he and everyone else was there for her, giving her the news on Nathan and Mark Jefferson’s trials, which were set to happen in a month's time.  
Warren asked if she thinks anyone could have done anything to stop this. Max shook her head.  
She finds herself alone, sometime past noon. The sun is harshly streaming from her window. She’s hungry, and it feels so strange, so normal, she forgets for a moment. Until she sits up, and feels the tightness in her chest, the deep, dark, lonely feeling that seems to drain the warmth from her. For a moment, Max feels like she might as well be back in the Dark Room. Her hands feel bound to her sides, her feet anchored to the floor. She can almost hear Mr. Jefferson’s voice.  
A moment of desperation.  
Max holds the picture for a long, long time.  
It one of her and her dad, the first taken in their new house. The background is full of moving boxes. She had dug this one up, instead of using one from weeks or month after the move, because she couldn’t let Chloe go through what she felt, in this moment. She wouldn’t let Chloe go a week without her best friend.  
She wouldn’t let herself go on without Chloe. She couldn’t. 

There are several seconds where Max thinks her powers are gone for good. She holds the photo, focuses as hard as she can, but nothing happens. Fear so cold and sharp slices through her, bringing tears to her eyes. But then, as she blinks to wipe them away, she hears the shutter go off.  
It was strange before, being in her younger body, but now Max feels like she could never be happier, never be more relieved, to feel small. Her dad's arm is strong and comforting.  
“It feels like home now, right Max?” Her mother’s voice is exactly as she remembers, and it hits her how much has happened since she last saw them, how much she’s changed.  
“Yeah, I think I’m gonna be happy here.” Max smiles, but finds her voice wavering. Her dad hugs her tight, and she lets out a small sob, before stepping back.  
“What’s wrong, Maxie?” Her dad bends down, pushing her hair back.  
“Nothing’s wrong, not really.” Max says. She bites her lip. “Can I call Chloe, please?”  
Max’s mom smiles widely.  
“I’m proud of you, honey. I know it's hard to leave her, but I’m glad you want to stay in touch. Your friendship will survive this, I know it.”  
Max goes to the phone, and lifts it to her ear. 

Max and Chloe call every day. They talk for hours sometimes, and sometimes only long enough to say goodnight. It doesn’t matter, as long as they hear each other’s voice. Their parents joke that the two of them will cost them more for phone bills than college. It’s not a question, as soon as winter break begins, of if Max can go visit Chloe, but of when.  
It becomes a new tradition. The girls switch off visiting every break. There's a bit of a scare when a teacher at Blackwell is arrested for kidnapping, so they go to Hawaii that year. Max first starts to wonder if all she feels for Chloe is friendship, as she watches her dive into the pool in the house they rented, her laugh making Max smile so wide her cheeks hurt.  
When they are fifteen, Chloe kisses her behind Two Whales. Chloe's blue hair tickles her nose and she's so shocked, she'd been so convinced that Chloe had a thing for their friend Rachel, that she pushes her away, and they don't speak for days. Some force brings them back together though, and Max finds herself in Chloe's room, kissing her in the early morning light.  
They don't date non stop. Chloe does have a thing for Rachel, and Max hugs herself and pushes her emotions down as she watches them walk hand in hand. But when Rachel gets into drugs and leaves Chloe for some guy named Frank, Max finds herself holding her best friend as she cries, and they fall asleep in Chloe's bed with lips tingling from kisses.  
Max goes to Blackwell, and Chloe decides to go to an online school. She hates feeling bad about her grades, and she finds a schedule that lets her find herself, her love for art and music and her passion for politics and fighting for what's right. She home schools her way through the rest of high school, often working late into the night in Max's dorm, while her girlfriend sleeps soundly under her wall of pictures.  
When they graduate, Max and Chloe dread the end of summer. They can fathom being states apart, much less across the country from each other. But they manage. They text constantly, skype so often it's embarrassing, and almost every break or long weekend they travel back to Arcadia.  
Chloe gets a tan, in their senior year, and Max just about faints when she sees her, sees her warm smile and her newly dyed hair shining brightly in the Arcadia sunrise, and she realizes she is going to spend the rest of her life with the most beautiful woman in the world. When she tells Chloe this, she gets a kiss so long she wonders if Chloe is trying to set a record.  
Max gets Chloe a ring with a stone in the shape of a butterfly.  
She doesn't know why she chose it, only that it feels right, almost familiar. She never can explain it, she just smiles and says, "Life is strange."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank's for reading!


End file.
